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Commentary

William Lane Craig on historical reliability of the gospels

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From Reasonable Faith, a challenge from a non-Christian who watched the Craig-Ehrman debate. (PDF of the transcript here at Apologetics 315)

Here are his questions:

1) What outside sources (outside of the canon) are there that support Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection in bodily form, and ascension into heaven?

2) The message of Jesus was spread by word of mouth until the gospels were written. How do we know legend wasn’t developed? Such as Jesus being buried by Joseph of Arimathea.

3) What about other pagan miracle workers such as Honi the Circle-Drawer, Hanina be Dosa, and Apollonius of Tyana (p 27). Doesn’t the fact that these pagan people doing miracles similar to Jesus discredit Jesus as a miracle worker?

4) What about the seeming contradictions in the different gospel accounts? Please give me a different answer then “These are only secondary details and does not lie at the heart of the matter.” If we go to a University that declares the Bible is inerrant, then shouldn’t we be able to explain these?

I quote from Mr. Ehrman in his debate vs Craig on p. 11:

“What day did Jesus die on and what time of day? Did he die on the day before the Passover meal was eaten, as John explicitly says, or did he die after it was eaten, as Mark explicitly says? Did he die at noon, as in John, or at 9 a.m., as in Mark? Did Jesus carry his cross the entire way himself or did Simon of Cyrene carry his cross? It depends which Gospel you read. Did both robbers mock Jesus on the cross or did only one of them mock him and the other come to his defense? It depends which Gospel you read. Did the curtain in the temple rip in half before Jesus died or after he died? It depends which Gospel you read. Or take the accounts of the resurrection. Who went to the tomb on the third day? Was it Mary alone or was it Mary with other women? If it was Mary with other women, how many other women were there, which ones were they, and what were their names? Was the stone rolled away before they got there or not? What did they see in the tomb? Did they see a man, did they see two men, or did they see an angel? It depends which account you read. What were they told to tell the disciples? Were the disciples supposed to stay in Jerusalem and see Jesus there or were they to go to Galilee and see Jesus there? Did the women tell anyone or not? It depends which Gospel you read. Did the disciples never leave Jerusalem or did they immediately leave Jerusalem and go to Galilee? All of these depend on which account you read.”

Now check this out – Dr. Craig quoting Ehrman to respond to a challenge raised by Ehrman:

4. What about the seeming contradictions in the different gospel accounts?

Here’s your straight answer, Grant: they don’t matter. I could accept that all of these apparent discrepancies are irresolvable, and it wouldn’t affect my historical argument one wit. Don’t believe me? Then let’s let Bart Ehrman speak for himself. Does he think that the seeming contradictions he lists undermine the historical credibility of the facts upon which my argument is based? No! He says,

The resurrection of Jesus lies at the heart of Christian faith. Unfortunately, it also is a tradition about Jesus that historians have difficulty dealing with. As I said, there are a couple of things that we can say for certain about Jesus after his death. We can say with relative certainty, for example, that he was buried. . . .

Some scholars have argued that it’s more plausible that in fact Jesus was placed in a common burial plot, which sometimes happened, or was, as many other crucified people, simply left to be eaten by scavenging animals (which also happened commonly for crucified persons in the Roman Empire). But the accounts are fairly unanimous in saying (the earliest accounts we have are unanimous in saying) that Jesus was in fact buried by this fellow, Joseph of Arimathea, and so it’s relatively reliable that that’s what happened.

We also have solid traditions to indicate that women found this tomb empty three days later. This is attested in all of our gospel sources, early and late, and so it appears to be a historical datum. As so I think we can say that after Jesus’ death, with some (probably with some) certainty, that he was buried, possibly by this fellow, Joseph of Arimathea, and that three days later he appeared not to have been in his tomb (“From Jesus to Constantine: A History of Early Christianity,” Lecture 4: “Oral and Written Traditions about Jesus” [The Teaching Company, 2003]).

The same goes double—well, many times more than double—for Jesus’ crucifixion. This event is widely recognized as the most solidly established fact about the historical Jesus, denied only by kooks and Muslim true believers. Yet Ehrman’s first five discrepancies are all connected, not with the burial and empty tomb narratives, but with the crucifixion accounts! So are you going to deny that Jesus of Nazareth was crucified under Roman authority at the time of the Jewish Passover feast in AD 30 because of these differences in the narratives? If so, Grant, then you will have not only intellectually marginalized yourself but also shown that you are not a sincere seeker after truth.

Do you see now, Grant, why I refused to be drawn into a dispute about how many angels there were at the tomb? Insofar as the historicity of the empty tomb is concerned, it just doesn’t matter.

This article also contains a bit of broad, educational material on how to do history:

In addition to these general considerations, scholars have enunciated certain “criteria of authenticity” to help detect historically reliable information about Jesus even in a document which may not be generally reliable. What the criteria really amount to are statements about the effect of certain types of evidence upon the probability of various sayings or events narrated in the sources. For some saying or event S, evidence of a certain type E, and our background information B, the criteria would state that, all things being equal, Pr (S|E&B) > Pr (S|B). In other words, all else being equal, the probability of some event or saying is greater given, for example, its early, independent attestation than it would have been without it.

What are some of the factors that might serve the role of E in increasing the probability of some saying or event S? The following are some of the most important:

1. Historical congruence: S fits in with known historical facts concerning the context in which S is said to have occurred.
2. Independent, early attestation: S appears in multiple sources which are near to the time at which S is alleged to have occurred and which depend neither upon each other nor upon a common source.
3. Embarrassment: S is awkward or counter-productive for the persons who serve as the source of information for S.
4. Dissimilarity: S is unlike antecedent Jewish thought-forms and/or unlike subsequent Christian thought-forms.
5. Semitisms: traces in the narrative of Aramaic or Hebraic linguistic forms.
6. Coherence: S is consistent with already established facts about Jesus.

Notice that these criteria do not presuppose the general reliability of the Gospels. Rather they focus on a particular saying or event and give evidence for thinking that specific element of Jesus’ life to be historical, regardless of the general reliability of the document in which the particular saying or event is reported. These same criteria are thus applicable to reports of Jesus found in the apocryphal Gospels, or rabbinical writings, or even the Qur’an. Of course, if the Gospels can be shown to be generally reliable documents, so much the better! But the criteria do not depend on any such presupposition. They serve to help spot historical kernels even in the midst of historical chaff. Thus we need not concern ourselves with defending the Gospels’ general reliability or every claim attributed to Jesus in the Gospels (much less their inerrancy!).

Click here for the rest. It is very important that Christians be able to use the Bible as a historical source with non-Christian challengers who do not accept the Bible as inerrant, nor even as generally reliable. The best way to learn is by seeing how Christian scholars make the case in debates and discussions.

Videos

Video and transcript of Rick Santorum’s inspiring Iowa victory speech

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The speech is 20 minutes long, and it sounds like what a Republican sounds like.

Here is the full transcript of Rick Santorum’s Iowa speech.

Excerpt:

SPEAKER: FORMER SEN. RICK SANTORUM, R-PA.,

PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE

[*]

SANTORUM: Thank you. Thank you. Game on.

(APPLAUSE) As all of you know, I do not speak from notes, but there’s a couple things I want to say that are a little — little more emotional, so I’m going to read them as I wrote them.

C.S. Lewis said a friend is someone who knows the song in your heart and can sing it back to you when you’ve forgotten the words. My best friend, my life mate, who sings that song when I forget the words, is my wife, Karen.

(APPLAUSE)

People have asked me how I’ve done this, sitting back at the polls and not getting a whole lot of attention paid to us. How did you keep going out to Iowa, in 99 counties, and 381 town hall meetings and speeches? Well, every morning when I was getting up in the morning to take on that challenge, I’ve required a strength from another particular friendship, one that is sacred. I’ve survived the challenges so far by the daily grace that comes from God.

(APPLAUSE)

For giving me his grace every day, for loving me, warts and all, I offer a public thanks to God.

(APPLAUSE)

Third, thanks. Thank you so much, Iowa.

(APPLAUSE)

You — you, by standing up and not compromising, by standing up and being bold and leading, leading with that burden and responsibility you have to be first, you have taken the first step of taking back this country.

(APPLAUSE)

This journey started officially just a few months ago in June, when I stood on the steps of the county courthouse in Somerset County, Pennsylvania. I decided to go there, not the typical place someone announces for president — it’s not where I was born, it’s not where I ever lived — but it’s where my grandfather came back in 1925. He came by himself, even though he was married with two children, one of them being my father. He came after having fought in World War I, because Mussolini had been in power now three years, and he had figured out that fascism was something that would crush his spirit and his freedom and give his children something less than he wanted for them.

So he made a sacrifice. He left to the coal fields of southwestern Pennsylvania. He worked in the mine at a company town, got paid with coupons, he used to call them, lived in a shack. Eventually, he figured out that that was a trip to nowhere, so he started taking less — taking money less so he could start to save, and he did. And after five years, he got his citizenship and brought my father over at the age of 7. He ended up continuing to work in those mines until he was 72 years old, digging coal. I’ll never forget the first time I saw someone who had died. It was my grandfather. And I knelt next to his coffin. And all I could do — eye level — was look at his hands. They were enormous hands. And all I could think was those hands dug freedom for me.

And so to honor him, I went to Somerset County, because I believe foundationally, while the economy is in horrible condition, while our country is not as safe as it was, and while threats are rising around the world, while the state of our culture under this administration continues to decline with the values that are unlike the values that built this country, that the essential issue in this race is freedom, whether we will be a country that believes that government can do things for us better than we can do for ourselves, or whether we believe, as our founders did, that rights come to us from God and, when he gave us those rights, he gave us the freedom to go out and live those — live those rights out to build a great and just society not from the top down, but from the bottom up.

(APPLAUSE)

My grandfather taught me basic things that my dad taught me over and over again: Work hard, work hard, and work hard. And I think about that today. There are so many men and women right now who would love to work hard, but they don’t have the opportunity.

And we have two parties who are out talking about how they’re going to solve those problems. One wants to talk about raising taxes on people who have been successful and redistributing money, increasing dependency in this country, promoting more Medicare and food stamps and all sorts of social welfare programs, and passing Obamacare to provide even more government subsidies, more and more dependency, more and more government, exactly what my grandfather left in 1925.

And then there’s another vision, with another vision, the Republican vision, which is, let’s just cut taxes, let’s just reduce spending and everyone will be fine.

I believe in cutting taxes. I believe in balancing budgets. I propose cutting $5 trillion from this budget over the next five years. I support a balanced budget amendment that puts a cap at 18 percent of GDP as a guarantee of freedom for this country. But …

(APPLAUSE)

But I also believe we as Republicans have to look at those who are not doing well in our society by just cutting taxes and balancing budgets, and that’s why I put forth a plan that Iowans responded to. It’s a plan that says, yes, let’s flatten the tax code, get rid of it, replace it with five deductions. Let’s create two rates, 10 percent and 28 percent. Why 28 percent? If it’s good enough for Ronald Reagan, it’s good enough for me.

(APPLAUSE) And then I take the corporate tax, cut that in half, because it’s the highest in the world, and we need to be competitive. But when I traveled around Iowa to the small towns, I found a lot of those small towns were just like the small towns that I traveled around in Pennsylvania. They were towns that were centered around manufacturing and processing, those good jobs that built those towns, and those jobs slowly, whether it’s in Hamburg, whether it’s in Newton, or any place in between, we found those jobs leaving Iowa.

Why? Because our workers didn’t want to work? Because our workers weren’t competitive? No. It’s because government made workers uncompetitive by driving up the cost of doing business here. It’s 20 percent more expensive to do manufacturing jobs in this country than it is in the top nine trading partners that we have to compete with. And that’s why we’re losing our jobs.

And so when Republican purists say to me, well, why are you treating manufacturing different than retail? I say because Wal- Mart’s not moving to China and taking their jobs with them.

(APPLAUSE)

So we eliminate the corporate tax on manufacturing so we can compete. We take the regulations, every regulation that’s over $100 million, and we repeal all those regulations, repeal them all, and there’s a lot of them. Under the Bush and Clinton administrations, they averaged 60 regulations over $100 million a year. This administration hit 150 last year.

You don’t want to know what’s crushing business. This administration is crushing business.

I’m taking a second look at Santorum’s economic policies and it seems to me that they will very good for blue collar workers especially. By cutitng corporate taxes, everyone in the country who makes anything at all is going to have about 6 job offers before noon.

As far as social policy and foreign policy, Santorum is number one. He really is a fine candidate. My endorsement of Rick Santorum is here. I previously liked Bachmann and Cain, but with those two now out, I find that Rick Santorum is actually better than either of them in many ways.

UPDATE: Wow! Rick Santorum raised over a million dollars already today!

News

New video by Yale scientist Alex Tsiaras shows fetal development

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Mbelina sent me this amazing video, which shows how babies develop from the earliest stages.

This article from Life Site News explains more.

Excerpt:

Alexander Tsiaras, Chief of Scientific Visualization in the department of Medicine at Yale University, employs new kinds of visualization technologies to view the human body.

What he has discovered, he says, “just made you marvel.”

Using micro-magnetic resonance imaging, Tsiaras tracked the development of the baby from conception to birth.

Tsiaras claims that the developing human body is “so perfectly organized a structure that it was hard not to attribute divinity to it.”

“When you actually start working on this data, its pretty spectacular,”  he said at a conference affiliated with TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design).

In the video viewers see the moment when the egg is inseminated. The baby’s first cellular division takes place within 24 hours and divides anew every 12 to 15 hours.

At four weeks, the baby’s cells are now developing at one million cells per second.

After 25 days, one can see the heart chamber developing. Within 32 days, arms and legs. At 52 days, the baby’s retina, nose, and fingers have developed.

Tsiaras calls the entire process — beginning with two simple cells and resulting in what he says is the “magic of you and me” — an “unbelievable machinery.”

“The magic of the mechanisms inside each genetic structure saying exactly where that nerve cell should go — the complexities of these — the mathematical models on how these things are indeed done are beyond human comprehension, even though I am a mathematician.”

“It’s a mystery, it’s magic, it’s divinity,” says Tsiaras, adding that the complexity of building the human organism within a single system is “beyond any existing mathematics today.”

It’s important to know what unborn babies look like, especially when having discussions about abortion.